Is the Federal Government anti both solar and small business?

By Stephen Ingrouille

26th May 2014

Nigel Morris, of Solar Business Services, enlightens us (22/5/14) on some of the contradictions in the Federal Government’s apparent position on the RET and in particular that of Senator Ron Boswell. Here are some extracts:

"Government Senator Ron Boswell is leading the vendetta, stretching the facts and the truth to suit the Governments ever more obvious end-game of abolishing the RET. ... [but] ... Take a look at Boswell’s web site and you can see photos of him at coal mines; not with solar companies. .... Boswell claimed the RET is forcing manufacturers out of business and that the Carbon Price is 'the major contributor to rising power costs'. That’s a grossly misleading and deceptive statement as the Prime Minister and every other protagonists of such rubbish has been forced to admit. The major contributor to rising power costs is Government owned network costs.

"What is the case is that thousands of homes and businesses, many in Boswell’s electorate are turning to solar to reduce their operational costs. In fact, Queensland has one of the highest take up rates in the country so Boswell has inadvertently attacked the decisions and investments made by almost 300,000 Queenslanders. Ironically, on the same day as his stinging attack on solar, Rio Tinto announcedthat they had agreed to install 6.7MW of solar in the remote Queensland town of Weipa to reduce their reliance on expensive (and subsidised) diesel fuel and reduce operational costs. So here is an International company in the resource sector, employing Queenslanders and acknowledging that solar helps their bottom line.

"Like so many others in the coalition, Boswell appears completely ignorant of the fact that the people he claims to be helping will actually be harmed by his out of date and misleading statements. He seems determined to slow their ability to save money by bringing about the early demise of the RET and other agencies that are actually helping to build Queensland!. ... What I find most staggering about Boswell’s attack on solar is that he claims to be passionate about supporting small and medium businesses in Australia. Guess what Senator Boswell – the vast majority of solar businesses in Australia are SME’s. And guess where the majority of them are located? Queensland. Your ruthless and spurious attack on solar energy has the potential to harm or destroy the lively hood of around 6,600 people employed in Queensland (2012) and more than 1000 business owners."